No More Learning

The great poet who
told the story of Domitian's turbot was the legitimate successor
of those forgotten minstrels whose songs animated the factions of
the infant Republic.

Those minstrels, as Niebuhr has remarked, appear to have
generally taken the popular side. We can hardly be mistaken in
supposing that, at the great crisis of the civil conflict, they
employed themselves in versifying all the most powerful and
virulent speeches of the Tribunes, and in heaping abuse on the
leaders of the aristocracy. Every personal defect, every domestic
scandal, every tradition dishonorable to a noble house, would be
sought out, brought into notice, and exaggerated. The illustrious
head of the aristocratical party, Marcus Furius Camillus, might
perhaps be, in some measure, protected by his venerable age and
by the memory of his great services to the state. But Appius
Claudius Crassus enjoyed no such immunity. He was descended from
a long line of ancestors distinguished by their haughty demeanor,
and by the inflexibility with which they had withstood all the
demands of the Plebeian order. While the political conduct and
the deportment of the Claudian nobles drew upon them the fiercest
public hatred, they were accused of wanting, if any credit is due
to the early history of Rome, a class of qualities which, in a
military commonwealth, is sufficient to cover a multitude of
offences. The chiefs of the family appear to have been eloquent,
versed in civil business, and learned after the fashion of their
age; but in war they were not distinguished by skill or valor.
Some of them, as if conscious where their weakness lay, had, when
filling the highest magistracies, taken internal administration
as their department of public business, and left the military
command to their colleagues. One of them had been entrusted with
an army, and had failed ignominiously. None of them had been
honored with a triumph. None of them had achieved any martial
exploit, such as those by which Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus,
Titus Quinctius Capitolinus, Aulus Cornelius Cossus, and, above
all, the great Camillus, had extorted the reluctant esteem of the
multitude. During the Licinian conflict, Appius Claudius Crassus
signalized himself by the ability and severity with which he
harangued against the two great agitators. He would naturally,
therefore, be the favorite mark of the Plebeian satirists; nor
would they have been at a loss to find a point on which he was
open to attack.
His grandfather, called, like himself, Appius Claudius, had left
a name as much detested as that Sextus Tarquinius. This elder
Appius had been Consul more than seventy years before the
introduction of the Licinian laws. By availing himself of a
singular crisis in public feeling, he had obtained the consent of
the Commons to the abolition of the Tribuneship, and had been the
chief of that Council of Ten to which the whole direction of the
state had been committed. In a new months his administration had
become universally odious. It had been swept away by an
irresistible outbreak of popular fury; and its memory was still
held in abhorrence by the whole city. The immediate cause of the
downfall of this execrable government was said to have been an
attempt made by Appius Claudius upon the chastity of a beautiful
young girl of humble birth. The story ran that the Decemvir,
unable to succeed by bribes and solicitations, resorted to an
outrageous act of tyranny. A vile dependent of the Claudian house
laid claim to the damsel as his slave. The cause was brought
before the tribunal of Appius. The wicked magistrate, in defiance
of the clearest proofs, gave judgment for the claimant. But the
girl's father, a brave soldier, saved her from servitude and
dishonor by stabbing her to the heart in the sight of the whole
Forum. That blow was the signal for a general explosion. Camp and
city rose at once; the Ten were pulled down; the Tribuneship was
reestablished; and Appius escaped the hands of the executioner
only by a voluntary death.

It can hardly be doubted that a story so admirably adapted to the
purposes both of the poet and of the demagogue would be eagerly
seized upon by minstrels burning with hatred against the
Patrician order, against the Claudian house, and especially
against the grandson and namesake of the infamous Decemvir.

In order that the reader may judge fairly of these fragments of
the lay of Virginia, he must imagine himself a Plebeian who has
just voted for the reelection of Sextius and Licinius. All the
power of the Patricians has been exerted to throw out the two
great champions of the Commons.